Occupations & Trades of the Shale Oil Industry

Refinery staff

The mining of shale, its retorting and refining, and the packaging and distribution of its products, involved many different processes. Each step in the production process was often the responsibility of a different occupation or trade. Each occupation had its own wage rate and representation, and often carried its own social status.

Some of the more specialist occupations are listed below; often a variety of terms were used to describe a particular occupation, depending on the location and period.

Bottomer: a person employed at the pit bottom to load hutches of shale into the pit cage.

Breakerman: a person employed at oil works to break lumps of shale, or tend a shale-breaking machine.

Brusher: a person employed by the company to maintain underground roadways.

Chainman: a person employed to link or unlink hutches from a moving haulage chain. Either underground or on the surface.